Moving Forward

Yesterday. I woke up at about 2:30 am to check the election results. I’d gone to bed the night before knowing very well who would win the election, but even then, I had to know for sure. I had to be completely certain because there was so much hinging on the result. I’d taken three times the dose of melatonin I’d usually take to knock myself out cold, and still I woke up two hours into the night because my anxiety was through the roof.

I barely wrote yesterday. I distanced myself from social media. I skipped class because I couldn’t bare to be face-to-face with a professor who’d so casually dismissed a Klan member’s racism some classes before. I’ve avoided using “certain names” in my posts because I just got over a bout of trolls and am not in the mood to do it again.

But in all of this, I think the thing I hated the most was the sudden, desperate need to end it all. I haven’t had the urge in a while, and definitely not like this, but it was there because for the first time since I left home, I honestly couldn’t see an out. This was it. It was over.

Today. I went to class and took care of some work. My professor gave a nice little speech that calmed me down a little. At least I can trust her. For the first time in two days, I feel comfortable enough to make a post like this. This is also the first time in two days that I’ve felt any motivation to get anything done.

As a kid, I grew up feeling trapped, hated, and threatened. It wasn’t until I started college that I started to not hate myself, my race, or my beliefs. Only about a year ago did I start to question my sexuality or my gender. Only two years ago did I feel like my life was actually starting to go somewhere.

And with the election results, I suddenly felt like that had all been taken away. Understand that as a kid, the only thing that got me through my day-to-day life was emo rock, books, and the knowledge that at 18, my life would finally start. Now, I’m 20, and I feel like it’s just about over. 2 years. That was my run.

And while I know that a presidential term is only 4 years long, it’s hard to accept that, now that my life is finally mine, I’m losing it for the next 4 years. I always said my early 20s would be the time I got to live, and now I know that it’s just 4 more years that I’ll have to spend fighting, fighting for my rights, my people, and my country. And I hate it. I hate knowing that once again, my life is not in my hands, my choices are being stripped, and I may not make it the next four years because I let my guard down. For the first time in my life, I thought I could finally rest, I could finally stop fighting. But I know I can’t.

Tomorrow. Everyone wants to make peace, and I get it, but there’s something they don’t seem to understand. I’m a victim to my own mind. I’m skipping classes, I’m shunning my passions, and I’m locking myself in my room for fear for my own safety. Yet, while people are actively seeking to make my situation worse, people are telling me to be kind to them, and I just don’t understand. My professor wasn’t being kind when he forced me to sit through video after video about murdering black people. My trolls weren’t being kind when they continued to persist I had no right to be upset about someone mocking feminism. Never have these people been kind to me, so why, in my darkest hour, am I supposed to treat them any differently? Especially when these examples are of the people who “aren’t racist”.

I know that my options are limited, but I’ll take what I have, and I promise you that I will be opposing this reign every step of the way. I’m currently working on writing more diverse books. My debut Plastic Wings will be out on Nov 22, and I’m currently hosting a twitter giveaway if anyone is interested in it. The giveaway is international. I also intend to host more giveaways of diverse books, and I’ll continue to bolster diverse voices on my blog and social media.

While I was originally printing my books through Createspace, I will likely change that now as Amazon is supporting the president elect.

I will only be purchasing diverse books for the forseeable future.

I will be making master posts of good rep, diverse/ally authors, and things in general to keep a lookout for.

I will be making posts about how to write diversely.

I will continue to do whatever I can to help all the people who, like me, feel trapped, because I’ve been there and I broke out, and while they may be dragging me back, they can damn well be certain that I won’t go willing. I won’t.